Thursday, February 10, 2011

forrests and trees

in the shared items section is a piece from grasping reality with both
hands about the difficulty companies are having finding qualified
employees even with 14 million people who are unemployed (and the
scads of people who are underemployed). the author thinks the obvious,
classic econ 101 solution is to offer higher wages to fill those spots
faster.
He's missing the forest though. What those companies are saying
with their refusal to raise wages in order to attract a bigger, better
pool of workers is that they don't think the current
unemployed/disemployed rate is high enough yet. I bet my deliciously
fat ass that they won't think they have an acceptable applicant pool
to pick from until the published unemployment rate is closer to great
depression 25% levels, which if the real disemployment numbers hold
true would put us at 50% disemployment. Won't it be grand, when
employers can get high skill, college educated workers domestically
for minimum wage or less if they are salaried and outsourcing is over?

--
The trouble with being poor is that it takes up all of your time.
Willem de Kooning

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